Justia Alabama Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In June 2011, Jerry Bohannon was charged with and convicted of two counts of capital murder in connection with the shooting deaths of Jerry DuBoise and Anthony Harvey outside the Paradise Lounge in Mobile. He received the death penalty. He raised four grounds on appeal of the conviction and sentence, alleging: (1) his death sentence should have been vacated in light of "Hurst v. Florida," (136 S.Ct. 616 (2016)); (2) the circuit court erred in characterizing the jury's penalty-phase determination as a recommendation and as advisory, conflicting with "Hurst;" (3) the circuit court erred in allowing the State to question defense character witnesses about Bohannon's alleged acts on the night of the shooting; and (4) the circuit court erred in failing to sua sponte instruct the jury on the victims' intoxication. Finding no reversible error in the Court of Criminal Appeals' judgment to affirm Bohannon's conviction and sentence, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Ex parte Jerry Bohannon" on Justia Law

In 1985, South Alabama Sewer Service, Inc. ("SASS"), and Lake View Developers, Ltd. ("Lake View"), entered into an agreement where SASS would construct a sewer line from its waste-treatment facility to a new planned subdivision and golf course ("Lake View Estates). In 1989, Lake View filed for bankruptcy. The development and golf course, excluding lots that had already been sold, were placed in receivership. 1991, SASS and Lakeview Realty entered into a new sewer agreement. In July 2003, Baldwin County Sewer Service, LLC ("BCSS"), purchased from SASS the sewer lines and sewer facilities servicing Lake View Estates. In 2004, BCSS purchased all the stock of SASS. Subsequent to BCSS's purchase of SASS and its facilities in Baldwin County, all monthly sewer fees related to Lake View Estates had been billed by and paid to BCSS. Sometime following its acquisition of SASS's sewer system, BCSS enacted a rate increase affecting customers in Lake View Estates. In 2014, multiple homeowner associations whose members were property owners in Lake View Estates, sued BCSS, generally asserting that BCSS had violated the sewer-service-rate provision of the 1991 agreement. The associations lost at trial on grounds that they lacked standing to sue to enforce the 1991 agreement. The Supreme Court disagreed, reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "The Gardens at Glenlakes Property Owners Association, Inc., et al. v. Baldwin County Sewer Service, LLC" on Justia Law

Jacquees Maurice Boone was convicted of attempted murder, for which he was sentenced as an habitual felony offender to life imprisonment. On appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Boone argued that the trial court erred in admitting evidence that he was affiliated with a "gang." The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Boone's conviction and sentence in an unpublished memorandum, reasoning that the evidence was relevant under Rule 404(b), Ala. R. Evid., to prove motive. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court disagreed, reversed and remanded for further proceedings: "The record does not disclose any evidence indicating that [the victim] Cooley or anyone in his family was a member of a gang. The motive advanced by the State at trial was that there was animosity between Boone and his friends, on the one hand, and Cooley's family, on the other hand, arising from the participation of Cooley's mother in police drug investigations that led to the arrest of Boone's friends. The State does not explain how the evidence of 'gang' affiliation is relevant to Boone's motive for shooting Cooley." View "Ex parte Jacquees Maurice Boone." on Justia Law

Southern States Police Benevolent Association, Inc. ("SSPBA"), and three of its members, all of whom were employed as police officers by the City of Auburn (collectively, "plaintiffs"), sued Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and the other members of the Board of Control of the Employees' Retirement System of Alabama ("the ERSA"); David Bronner, the chief executive officer and secretary-treasurer of the Retirement Systems of Alabama ("the RSA") and the ERSA; and Thomas White, Jr., the State comptroller (referred to collectively as "the State defendants"), in their representative capacities. Plaintiffs sought injunctive relief and a judgment declaring that participants in the pension plan the ERSA operated could make retirement contributions and receive increased retirement benefits based upon their "earnable compensation," which term, the police plaintiffs argued, rightly included payments received for overtime worked. The trial court entered a summary judgment in favor of the State defendants, and the police plaintiffs appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed, because "earnable compensation" as defined in code section 36-27-1(14), was compensation received for working "the full normal work-time." The Court agreed with the State defendants that, before the amendment of 36- 27-1(14) in 2012, earnable compensation did not properly include overtime payments, regardless of the past practice of the ERSA. "Moreover, although the 2012 amendment to 36-27-1(14) allows overtime payments to be included within earnable compensation to a limited extent . . . we find no support in the language of the statute for the police plaintiffs' argument that the legislature intended to differentiate between mandatory overtime and voluntary overtime and to make mandatory overtime part of a member's annual base compensation and thus not subject to the 120 percent limit." View "Southern States Police Benevolent Association, Inc., et al. v. Govenor Robert H. Bentley et al." on Justia Law

While serving a subpoena on Christopher Okafor at the residence of Shanna Hereford, law-enforcement officers noticed a strong smell of marijuana and entered the residence. When an officer asked Okafor if there was marijuana in the residence, Okafor responded that there was. When the officers requested that Okafor sign a consent form to permit a search the residence, Okafor informed them that he did not live at the residence and that he could not sign a consent form to search the residence. Okafor, however, led the officers to the marijuana, which was located in a white plastic bag in the closet of a downstairs bedroom. A subsequent search of the bedroom resulted in the seizure of not only the marijuana, but also $16,500 in cash. Okafor denied any knowledge or ownership of the currency. The State filed a complaint against Okafor seeking to condemn the $16,500 seized from Hereford's residence. Okafor filed an answer in which he stated that he was the lawful owner of the currency, that the currency was not subject to condemnation, and that the law-enforcement officers had seized the currency during an unlawful search. The State moved for a summary judgment; Okafor, amongst other things, argued that the officers did not have probable cause or consent to enter Hereford's residence and that any consent that they may have gotten for the search of the residence was not given knowingly, intelligently, and/or freely. The Court of Civil Appeals, in a per curiam opinion, reversed the summary judgment, finding that Okafor presented sufficient evidence to create genuine issues of material fact with regard to the legality of the search of Hereford's residence and the legality of the seizure of the currency. The Supreme Court disagreed: because Okafor did not demonstrate that he had a legitimate expectation of privacy or a proprietary interest in Hereford's residence, he did not establish that he had standing to challenge the search of the residence and the seizure of the currency. View "Ex parte State of Alabama." on Justia Law

Arvest Bank petitioned for mandamus relief, seeking to have the Autauga Circuit Court to vacate its order denying Arvest's motion to quash a writ of execution obtained by Iberiabank f/k/a Capitalsouth Bank ("Iberia") against real property owned by Evelyn Niland ("Evelyn"). Thomas Karrh, II transferred the property Iberia wanted to sell to Evelyn and her husband Raymond Niland as joint tenants with right of survivorship. The Nilands quitclaimed the property to Evelyn, removing Raymond from the title. Raymond stopped paying an existing debt to Iberia. Iberia obtained a judgment against Raymond for close to $125,000. Iberia filed a lien against all of Raymond's property. Evelyn transferred the property back to herself and Raymond, attempting to create a joint tenancy with the right of survivorship. At the same time Evelyn tried this transfer, she and her husband executed a mortgage to Arvest Bank. Iberia secured a writ of execution against the property; Arvest intervened to try to quash a sheriff's sale of the property. Raymond died shortly thereafter. The trial court granted the intervention and stayed the sale proceedings, but after Iberia opposed these actions, the sheriff's sale was permitted to proceed. Finding that Evelyn indeed did create a joint tenancy with the right of survivorship, the Supreme Court found that Iberia's interest was extinguished with Raymond's death, and that Iberia could not attach its writ to the property. The order denying Arvest's motion to quash the writ of execution was reversed and the case remanded for the trial court to grant Arvest's request. View "Ex parte Arvest Bank." on Justia Law

An issue implicating the "prison mailbox rule" came before the Supreme Court in this case. The rule, codified at Ala. Code 1975 13A-5-9.1, was revised to place a time limit on motions like the motion for reconsideration of sentence underlying this appeal, and a question arose as to whether the statute's time limit applied here. The Supreme Court concluded the time limit did appeal, and reversed the Court of Criminal Appeals' holding to the contrary. View "Ex parte Joe Louis Spencer." on Justia Law

The State of Alabama Board of Education ("SBOE") and several of its executive directors petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus to direct the Jefferson Circuit Court to vacate its order denying their motion to dismiss claims filed against them by respondent Sharper Adams and numerous employees of the Birmingham Board of Education (BBOE). Petitioners sought to have all claims dismissed with prejudice on immunity grounds. The BBOE failed to submit a financial-recovery plan to the SBOE by an April 2, 2012, deadline, and its minimum-reserve fund remained underfunded. Once complete, the financial-recovery plan included, among other things, a reduction in force ("RIF"), which required that the jobs of the respondents, among others, be eliminated. The circuit court determined that petitioners had violated the respondents' federal due-process rights by depriving them of their property interest without due process of law because, the circuit court concluded, the petitioners failed to comply with the procedural requirements of the Students First Act ("the SFA"). Specifically, the circuit court concluded that the SFA, a state law, required that the respondents receive notice of the fact that the implementation of the RIF would result in the termination of their employment positions with the BBOE and that the petitioners failed to give the respondents such notice. Accordingly, the circuit court concluded that the respondents' federal due-process rights had been violated. After review, the Supreme Court granted petitioners' petition in part, and denied it in part. The Court granted the petition with regard to claims against the individual administrators in their official capacities, finding they were entitled to immunity. The Court denied the petition with regard to claims agains the SBOE. View "Ex parte State of Alabama Board of Education et al." on Justia Law

John Boman appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the City of Gadsden. Boman worked as a Gadsden police officer from 1965 until he retired in 1991. Following his retirement, Boman elected to pay for retiree health coverage through a group plan offered by Gadsden to retired employees. This retired-employee-benefit plan was also administered by Blue Cross and provided substantially similar benefits to those Boman received as an active employee. In 2000, however, Gadsden elected to join an employee-health-insurance-benefit plan ("the plan") administered by the State Employees' Insurance Board ("the SEIB"). When Boman turned 65 in 2011, he was receiving medical care for congestive heart failure and severe osteoarthritis of the spine. After his 65th birthday, Blue Cross began denying his claims for medical treatment based on the failure to provide Blue Cross with a "record of the Medicare payment." However, Boman had no Medicare credits. Boman was hired before March 31, 1986, and, although Gadsden did begin participation in the Medicare program in 2006, Boman's employee group had not opted to obtain Medicare coverage before Boman retired. Consequently, Boman never paid Medicare taxes and did not claim to have Medicare coverage. The SEIB ultimately determined that the plan was the secondary payer to Medicare. Boman sued Gadsden, asserting that it had broken an agreement, made upon his employment, to provide him with lifetime health benefits upon his retirement. Boman also sued the members of the SEIB charged with administering the plan, challenging the SEIB's interpretation of the plan. Finding no reversible error in the grant of summary judgment to Gadsden, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Boman v. City of Gadsden" on Justia Law

The Wilcox County Board of Education ("the Board") and Lester Turk, in his official capacity as a member of the Board (collectively, "defendants"), petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus directing the Wilcox Circuit Court ("the trial court") to vacate its March 21, 2016, order denying their motion to dismiss Eli Mack's complaint and to enter an order granting that motion. Mack, a resident of Wilcox County, filed a "complaint for declaratory judgment" against the Board and Turk in his official capacity as a member of the Board. An election contest was filed against Darryl Perryman after a general election, which resulted in his being removed from office because he was not a resident within the jurisdictional boundaries for Wilcox County. The State Board of Education requested that the Board (while Turk was serving as president) permit it to intervene in the election contest. The request failed because of a tied vote. After the failed vote, three members of the Board, without the approval of a majority of the members, asked the State Board to intervene in the election contest. Given those facts, Mack alleged that an "actual and substantial controversy exists as to whether [the] [d]efendants had the authority to intervene in the election contest ... or to invite the intervention of the State Board ... where there are no facts that would justify such intervention, and no valid vote granting such action was taken." Because the Board was immune from suit, the Supreme Court concluded the trial court was without subject-matter jurisdiction, and the Board was entitled to dismissal from the case. In addition, Turk was also entitled to sovereign immunity (and thus dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction) because Mack's claim for injunctive relief failed to invoke an "exception" to sovereign immunity. Because Mack lacked standing to bring a claim for the recovery of an expenditure of public funds, the trial court was without subject-matter jurisdiction over that claim as well. Accordingly, the Supreme Court granted the petition and issued the writ directing the trial court to enter an order granting the Board and Turk's motion to dismiss. View "Ex parte Wilcox County Board of Education" on Justia Law